Thanks Luminon. I probably seem reasonable to you because I have taken the time to read about Economics before opining on economic policy and spewing talking points from pundits like bill maher. In philosophy I've avoided the ditch of predeterminism that many secular people fall into. I call it Atheistic Calvinism.

“The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit.” ― Richard Pryor

The Keneysian economist just repeats the same talking points I've heard before from the left. Notice the lack of empirical evidence and non sequiturs in his diatribe. Also the myth of trickle down economics that no classical liberal Economist has ever academically defended.

It started pretty bad when they talked about the bailout and how the bankers just kept doing the same old same old. An economist would know that in the free market system the loss is just as important as the profit. Losses tell a business that they need to change course or face extinction, but as the US subsidizes the loss of bankers they will never change course. I'm amazed that the economist didn't point that out.

The rest of the propaganda regarding the minimum wage was very mainstream that they didn't need an economist to make those points to be honest. Just talking points. No discussion of trade offs, incentives and hidden costs let alone empirical studies on the long term effects of minimum wage increases especially on minorities. Good try EK.

“The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit.” ― Richard Pryor

I disagree with you completely when you say that market works best with little to no government. Not only do I think it is wrong, it also isn't a good thing to have little to no government to regulate the market, even if that hurts the market. This mindset of no intervention is unrealistic since corporations will do WHATEVER it takes to make a profit. If that means making working conditions as terrible as possible for their workers, then they will do it. But since the United States and thankfully most of the modernized world have strict regulations on working environments to make sure greedy corporations don't cut corners and kill employees, the corporations ship the jobs overseas to countries that don't have strict regulations. Having a government that makes sure pollution is controlled and provides incentives for companies turning to alternative and renewable resources may hurt the economy in the short run. But in the long run, when our fossil fuels are all used up (150 years max), renewable energy will be the only way of getting power. Even in America, corporations still buy off politicians so that regulations won't be as strict, and this is why we saw the recession of 2008 where banks lied to their investors by saying the company was doing fine and the next day the bank going bankrupt. Not only did the banks cause a massive recession by committing fraud, they had to be bailed out with $1 trillion, and absolutely nobody was put in jail for this global act of fraud that hurt the global economy and cost millions their jobs. This is what makes libertarian economics so unrealistic, the fact that you think companies would magically stop cutting corners and committing fraud to raise their profit if no government regulated the market is silly and should never be taken seriously. Need an example of a market where no government intervenes? Look at China. Satellite images of Beijing have shown nothing but smog covering the city completely from view. A company in China has began selling bottled air since the air in major cities of China is so polluted and un-breathable. Factories in China are allowed to spew out thousands of metric tons of very harmful pollutants and you say that no government would be a good thing. Please grow up and look at the reality. Corporations aren't guided by some moral force, they have no morals, they always do whatever will make them the most profit.

(14-06-2014 10:04 PM)TokyoRoyalty Wrote: I disagree with you completely when you say that market works best with little to no government. Not only do I think it is wrong, it also isn't a good thing to have little to no government to regulate the market, even if that hurts the market. This mindset of no intervention is unrealistic since corporations will do WHATEVER it takes to make a profit. If that means making working conditions as terrible as possible for their workers, then they will do it. But since the United States and thankfully most of the modernized world have strict regulations on working environments to make sure greedy corporations don't cut corners and kill employees, the corporations ship the jobs overseas to countries that don't have strict regulations.

Yeah, that is what I thought several years ago before I started learning all this stuff from independent sources (Austrian school of economy, etc).
Corporations ship jobs to China, where government is de facto the boss of all corporations and so the conditions are even worse there. Workers have nowhere to go, not even to another corporation, because they're with the govt too.

Yes, corporations will do whatever it takes to get profit. If there is no government to buy privileges from, corporations will inevitably have to do the most desperate thing: undercut competition, offer higher salaries, better working conditions, listen to employee suggestions and make higher quality products to have more money to pay to the employees.
Corporations will never endanger free society, because the CEO and managers are just a few people. In a world where any worker can afford to buy a gun, corporations can't out-gun workers or force them to work. The only one who can do that is government, because it prints money. Everyone has to earn their gun-money somewhere, except government which prints them, that is the only reason why the government out-guns everyone.

(14-06-2014 10:04 PM)TokyoRoyalty Wrote: Having a government that makes sure pollution is controlled and provides incentives for companies turning to alternative and renewable resources may hurt the economy in the short run. But in the long run, when our fossil fuels are all used up (150 years max), renewable energy will be the only way of getting power. Even in America, corporations still buy off politicians so that regulations won't be as strict, and this is why we saw the recession of 2008 where banks lied to their investors by saying the company was doing fine and the next day the bank going bankrupt. Not only did the banks cause a massive recession by committing fraud, they had to be bailed out with $1 trillion, and absolutely nobody was put in jail for this global act of fraud that hurt the global economy and cost millions their jobs. This is what makes libertarian economics so unrealistic, the fact that you think companies would magically stop cutting corners and committing fraud to raise their profit if no government regulated the market is silly and should never be taken seriously.

All of your examples present a heavy government involvement. All American or any other world finances are government-based, except Bitcoin.
Fossil fuels are used up so fast, because governments print money and make taxes, so everyone has to work and produce more stay above the water. Excess productivity is burned up in wars. The war in Iraq burns up as much oil every day as the whole sub-continent of India. Also, governments are the only ones who EVER used nuclear weapons - hundreds and thousands of them for testing. And of course depleted Uranium weapons that destroyed genetics of the Iraq citizens.

OTOH, private corporations take care of the environment they own, because that is how they make profit. If they cut trees, they replant, because it is less expensive than to buy more forest. If they do tourist business, they keep the nature nice, because that's what people want to see.
Of course corporations plunder what they don't own, because that is owned by the government which is easily bribed, because government makes no profit from nature. It just needs votes, taxes and money printing.

(14-06-2014 10:04 PM)TokyoRoyalty Wrote: Need an example of a market where no government intervenes? Look at China. Satellite images of Beijing have shown nothing but smog covering the city completely from view. A company in China has began selling bottled air since the air in major cities of China is so polluted and un-breathable. Factories in China are allowed to spew out thousands of metric tons of very harmful pollutants and you say that no government would be a good thing. Please grow up and look at the reality. Corporations aren't guided by some moral force, they have no morals, they always do whatever will make them the most profit.

Man, China is THE government! China is communistic, which means government is directly involved in everything. It only permits the corporations to exist because it is more productive to let CEOs use their own head. There is very little difference between large public sector, socialism, communism and fascism, these are all about a strong, regulating, tax-powered, money-printing government, there are just small differences in emphasis on patriotism or internationalism or religion or market. It practice it does not matter all that much. Government is basically a corporation, except it can use violence to achieve its goals. (that's why corporativism is related to authoritarian regimes like fascism) It does not use violence often unless it has to, but if you keep resisting what the government wants, it will inevitably use violence against you. All government punishments like parking tickets are warnings before it uses violence. If you resist, it always leads to violence.

Government is the source of violence. Try to refuse an offer from a big corporation like Apple or Microsoft to buy its products. What happens? Nothing. You just buy stuff from someone else. Microsoft or Apple must try to make their products better, so that you actually WANT to buy it.
But what happens if government wants money from you? You owe them. You don't get to decide which school, road, healthcare or water companies do YOU want to buy from, government takes your money, much more than this stuff actually costs, and gives some of it to privileged corporations. These corporations and government employees have little motivation to make their products better, they get paid no matter what.

(17-06-2014 02:11 PM)Luminon Wrote: For all these who say WHO WILL BUILD THE ROADS?

Anarchist road-building machine. Your argument is invalid.

You really are a retard aren't you? This is the dumbest most infantile argument I have ever seen. You have hit the Not Even Wrong stage in that you are just incoherent. Tell you what when you grow up and want to have a real discussion let me know until then masterbate in private not on the forum.

(31-07-2014 04:37 PM)Luminon Wrote: America is full of guns, but they're useless, because nobody has the courage to shoot an IRS agent in self-defense

(17-06-2014 02:36 PM)Revenant77x Wrote: You really are a retard aren't you? This is the dumbest most infantile argument I have ever seen. You have hit the Not Even Wrong stage in that you are just incoherent. Tell you what when you grow up and want to have a real discussion let me know until then masterbate in private not on the forum.

The reason why I say that is not because I'd think it is a good argument. The reason is, most government apologetics say it and they don't even find it weird. They say, nobody would build roads in a free society, only government. It's kind of an insider joke now, just like atheists laugh when Christians say that you can't be moral without God. That's like saying we need slavery or nobody would pick cotton. And yes, people probably said that before slavery was abolished.
If you think this is stupid, it's the statism we are talking about, the belief that the state (centralized violence) is necessary to provide some services that everyone wants but nobody would pay for on a free market. Besides roads, they also often include schools and healthcare, which are even more absurd.
More here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_roads

(17-06-2014 02:36 PM)Revenant77x Wrote: You really are a retard aren't you? This is the dumbest most infantile argument I have ever seen. You have hit the Not Even Wrong stage in that you are just incoherent. Tell you what when you grow up and want to have a real discussion let me know until then masterbate in private not on the forum.

The reason why I say that is not because I'd think it is a good argument. The reason is, most government apologetics say it and they don't even find it weird. They say, nobody would build roads in a free society, only government. It's kind of an insider joke now, just like atheists laugh when Christians say that you can't be moral without God. That's like saying we need slavery or nobody would pick cotton. And yes, people probably said that before slavery was abolished.
If you think this is stupid, it's the statism we are talking about, the belief that the state (centralized violence) is necessary to provide some services that everyone wants but nobody would pay for on a free market. Besides roads, they also often include schools and healthcare, which are even more absurd.
More here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_roads

Yeah, but why didn't they build the unified and standardized interstate system? How come the Federal Department of Transportation beat them to the punch? Where was the free-market out cry for industry to step up and build a standard interstate highway system that would allow for faster travel from coast to coast?

In the early wild-cat days of railroads, there were dozens of different 'standards' for tracks that were not compatible with each other (a train built for one standard wouldn't work on another). The rail 'network' was an absolute mess.

Of course, people could deal with companies directly.

But an individual against a whole company or corporation? Well, the tax-payers would certainly increase their bargaining power if they grouped together into a collective to make these decisions as a whole. Oh, you know, like a government or a state...

But what if they wanted to make sure that the company had oversight to make sure they were following safety standards? What if they wanted to make sure that their roads would be compatible with the roads and vehicles being used in other counties/municipalities/states? What if the companies building vehicles had to design vehicles that had to meet dozens (if not hundreds) of different safety and road standards?

Generally speaking, you'd want somebody with oversight and regulatory powers to ensure standardization for improved efficiency. Unless this agency can set and enforce policy and standards across an entire state or country, it would be rather useless. So we're looking at state and federal level agencies to coordinate these things. And your alternative to this (forceful slavery and Orwellian oversight ) is what again?

Also, I love how that Wikipedia page has multiple flags for either insufficient or completely missing references.

(18-06-2014 01:54 AM)EvolutionKills Wrote: Yeah, but why didn't they build the unified and standardized interstate system? How come the Federal Department of Transportation beat them to the punch? Where was the free-market out cry for industry to step up and build a standard interstate highway system that would allow for faster travel from coast to coast?

That's the government for ya - first rob people with taxes and wars, and then blame them that they can't raise enough capital for standardization

Anyway, what's worse, less standardization and no wars, or government standardization and government killing tens of millions in wars?

For example, was the Trans-Siberian railroad so valuable that it was worth all the dead workers and the whole Tzarist regime? Standardization is a very good thing, but it is no justification for initiating violence. If standardization is such a good thing, which it is, people will want it voluntarily, when the economy can actually afford it without mass robbery and killing, that sets the productivity back for generations.

(18-06-2014 01:54 AM)EvolutionKills Wrote: Of course, people could deal with companies directly.

But an individual against a whole company or corporation? Well, the tax-payers would certainly increase their bargaining power if they grouped together into a collective to make these decisions as a whole. Oh, you know, like a government or a state...

No, not like government or state. Consumer association can bargain with the corporation by for example a threat of passive withholding payments if the company doesn't keep a deal. But a consumer association is not a government that could actively start a war. Because this negotiation is not violent and not violently monopolistic. Government is and always was a monopoly on initiation of violence, we use the official Max Weber's definition, only he didn't think that initiating violence was such a bad thing necessarily. You know, Germans.

(18-06-2014 01:54 AM)EvolutionKills Wrote: But what if they wanted to make sure that the company had oversight to make sure they were following safety standards? What if they wanted to make sure that their roads would be compatible with the roads and vehicles being used in other counties/municipalities/states? What if the companies building vehicles had to design vehicles that had to meet dozens (if not hundreds) of different safety and road standards?

Generally speaking, you'd want somebody with oversight and regulatory powers to ensure standardization for improved efficiency. Unless this agency can set and enforce policy and standards across an entire state or country, it would be rather useless. So we're looking at state and federal level agencies to coordinate these things. And your alternative to this (forceful slavery and Orwellian oversight ) is what again?

Insurance companies, of course. If there are any safety standards, insurance companies will want people to use them, to have fewer costly casualties. Those who don't subscribe to particular safety standards, will pay more on insurance. This is how safety is profitable.
A special kind of insurance company is a Dispute Resolution Organization, which is kind of a general case insurance and conflict mediation company. DROs will insure all contracts and making large contracts without a DRO to back you up would be madness. DROs would keep track of people's "honor" and defend it and would pay for the damage if somehow there is no evidence which party is guilty. Of course there would be competition for customers among DROs, no DRO can take over the society, just like one insurance company can't take over.